


Sometimes My Teammates Don’t Tell Me Things

by izumi2



Series: List of Questions (Civil War Team Iron Man) [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Not Steve Friendly, Not Wanda Friendly, Sort Of, but I redeem Sam here, steve gets punched in the face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:14:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13253856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izumi2/pseuds/izumi2
Summary: Sam actually had a reason, even if not a good one, to give his opinion on Tony after Berlin.He was compromised. Just like everybody else.But it happened when no one was looking.~*~Previously called “Retrospective”.





	Sometimes My Teammates Don’t Tell Me Things

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to put this in two series ('List of Questions' and a new one called 'Karmic Irony').
> 
> Because this fits in both, but I am beginning to work on another concept.

**_ Why Sam felt entitled to give opinion about Tony after Berlin? _ **

Sam must have watched the video a thousand times but it never changed. Why would it? The thing was days old. He knew it wasn’t healthy, he knew it would serve no purpose and he knew it was illogical. But he was in agony. The airman didn’t care about logic, about all the coping mechanisms he developed over the years after he retired from the Air Force, all he cared about was the crunching and wet noise that ensued mechanical swirls and a roar.

His head felt light but his body didn’t have enough strength to hold it upright. Next thing Sam knew, his neighbor was knocking and calling his name, asking if he was alright and his living room was a wreck. Feeling his fists almost raw, Sam could take a guess about what happened.

Mrs. Collins, her daughter was a Navy. When Sam retired and bought this house she insisted on baking for him on occasion, the former airman was grateful to her. With what was left of his family so far away…

He can’t think of that right now, he can’t.

~*~

Sam was giddy. This was the Avengers and he was invited to join by Captain America himself!

At his side, his newest teammates, new recruits just like him, waiting for Captain America to give the first official orders.

“Avengers!”

~*~

If Sam noticed that Stark wasn’t around? Well, he also noticed Banner’s absence but the former airman wasn’t much inclined to ask about it either. Wanda’s presence confused him but he accepted it. Wasn’t she Sokovian?

~*~

Then Lagos happened and the Accords. Sam felt bad and he was sure that Steve, as the CO, and Wanda, as the one that was involved in the accident felt even worse. However Sam felt that the debacle in Lagos didn’t warrant the Accords. What does it say that because of a rookie mistake after everything they have done, they already collared by some paper-pushers?

The former airman never thought that the world could be this petty.

~*~

Once in Wakanda, Team Cap thought they could relax. Some disaster, soon enough would happen and they would be needed again.

Sam was just back from his daily morning run when he heard arguing coming from the living room, grabbing a bottle of water, he calmly made his way over. Arguing was the common nowadays, usually because of something or another one of them finds on the internet. Sam already gave up on trying to stop them from reading comments on YouTube. Nothing good ever comes out of it.

It was more or less common to hear Wanda and Clint raging about Stark, Scott was never too far behind. The councilor in Sam recognized that Scott didn’t actually know Stark to like or dislike him, the guy was just repeating what other people told him about the man. The bigger part was just too pissed at the whole situation to care much about it.

If there was one thing that the VA taught him was that Sam just can’t help other people if he didn’t help himself first. If Sam was in a dark place, he can’t help other get out of it as well. It would be hypocritical and counterproductive, not to mention that it never ended well.

Sam was so angry at Stark, at his betrayal, at his part in this whole story that he was just plain wrong to try and make the other stop ranting about the billionaire.

The scene he came upon, however, was not the usual yelling direct at the TV, computer, cellphone or something else altogether that reminds them of Stark. Instead, Scott was yelling murder at…either Wanda or Steve, it was hard to tell when Wanda was half cowering, half glowering behind Steve that was frowning disapprovingly at Scott and Clint was to the side glaring at the floor. Scott chose this moment to shout louder than the entire ruckus.

“What the flying fuck is wrong with you? Did you know about this crap?! SAY SOMETHING!”

The few seconds of silence were enough for Sam’s voice to sound particularly loud.

“What is going on?” the question was directed at Clint that seemed the only one more or less uninvolved but everybody heard and he was suddenly under Cap’s relieved eyes which only confused Sam even more.

“Sam! Thank God!” Steve started to walk towards him before remembering and keeping himself between Scott and Wanda, “Look, can you run intervention?”

“Intervention? You useless, big piece of…”

“For what?” the airman interrupted the engineer before whatever word he wanted to say got out of his mouth.

“There were stuff that we didn’t tell people because we knew it would be blown out of proportion…” but it seemed that no one would get to finish what they wanted to say today because Steve’s almost tired voice was cut off by Scott’s irate one.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH! OUT OF PROPORTION? WHAT? BECAUSE IT WASN’T YOUR BUDDY-BUCKY OTHER PEOPLE JUST DON’T MATTER?! AND YOU LET THEM TAKE THE FALL FOR IT TOO!”

“TAKE THE FALL FOR WHAT?! HIDE WHAT?” Sam had his limits too and all this yelling wasn’t improving anything.

“We didn’t hide anything. We just… omitted certain details.”

“Enough with this shit!” Scott snarled through gritted teeth and turned to Sam with a strange calm, like he was a breath’s away from blowing up again, “Did you know that the mess in Johannesburg was **_not_** Stark’s and Banner’s screw up? Turns out little Missy Red over there fucked with Banner’s mind and Stark had to face the Hulk because of it, **_that’s_** what happened in Johannesburg!”

Sam’s thoughts came to a halt.

All the exercises, all the hours dedicated to coping were out the window. His ears were clogged, Sam could see their mouths moving, but could hear no sound. Steve was saying something, Scott was saying something, Clint and Wanda were not saying anything.

His hands were shaking, but there was no feeling in them. His arms were numb but there was pain. From the tip of his finger and walking, crawling towards his chest.

He was unaware of his steps until his back hit the wall, his watch made a metallic sound against it. Vibranium, his brain supplied.

Then nothing.

~*~

“But what happened to him?” a voice demanded but Sam’s ears were clogged, it sounded so very far away.

“Like I said, all we could find is an absurd peak in his heartbeat and low blood pressure and he was sweating. It looks like some sort of panic attack.”

“But we weren’t talking about anything that would trigger him like that!”

There was silence, and Sam could almost **_feel_** the skepticism, “He is awake.” A different voice just to his right and the airman couldn’t remember when he opened his eyes, could barely even acknowledge the creamy ceiling and cushy hospital bed.

Now he was recognizing his surroundings and matching the voices with faces. Steve and two doctors that were also involved in putting Barnes back in cryo. The hospital bed was of top quality, Sam couldn’t even take a guess of the thread count of the sheets but it made the cotton feel like silk, still undeniably a hospital bed with its metal handles.

And the creamy ceiling was replaced by Steve’s face, “Sam!” he winced at the volume and luckily one of the doctors noticed because after a reprimand, Steve winced apologetically and lowered his voice, “How are you feeling?”

You know those moments when you get so angry, so angry that you just spit whatever comes to your head? Whatever tool you can use to hurt, be it words, objects. Just to draw metaphorical or literal blood. Low blow doesn’t matter then, you can barely even recognize what constitutes a ‘low blow’ before or even after it’s out of your mouth.

Your vision turns red, you fight (with words, with fists) and when it’s over you don’t even remember what is it that you said, what happened, what even started the whole thing. You just stand there, your head finally cooled off and with no idea how things ended the way they did.

Sam almost snorted, that’s actually what people mean when they try to stop an argument with ‘I will leave/stop you before you do something that you regret later’, not because they think they’re in the right but because they know if things get too heated, people literally say and do things they will regret later, it’s that simple because it was the plain truth.

This was not such a case. And, in any other time, Sam would be extremely concerned at how absurdly calm he was feeling at the whole thing, especially because the last time he was conscious he had a… panic attack was it? Whatever. Indifference can be a concerning sign, ‘calm before the storm’ kind of thing but he couldn’t give a fuck right now.

Sam calmly pushed Steve aside so he could sit up; blinking briefly at the hospital gown he was wearing before zeroing on his clothes by the end of the bed. He got up against the doctor’s orders and, not paying any mind at anyone in his room, stripped to his boxers and put on his clothes. The two doctors were only scowling and Steve was looking to the side, red in the face.

Hmm, well, since he was so gracious about it, Sam pulled his arm and let his fist fly.

~*~

Sam’s heart was racing and he couldn’t look away from Rhodes’ wheelchair. Fuck, what did they do? He swallowed with some difficulty. But the Colonel wasn’t the one to enter the room, the brief – couple of seconds really – glimpse that Sam had of him felt like hours but in reality was just enough time for a man with red tinted glasses and a cane to walk into the room.

“My name is Matt Murdock and I am your court appointed lawyer. From what I could understand you are ready to plead guilty in the charges of accessory to assault in and accessory to destruction of public property in Bucharest…aside from probable charges in Leipzig as well as Lagos.”

It wasn’t a question, but Sam answered, “Yes.”

“Are you aware that you can face 15 years of prison sentence? Minimum?”

Sam winced but, “Yes.”

Matt seemed to stare at him, trying to figure him out but the guy was blind, wasn’t he? Sam didn’t know what he was trying to ‘see’.

“Why did you decide to come forward now? Are you intending to report your… companions’ location in exchange for a deal?”

The questions didn’t surprise him, the airman didn’t even flinch. He was expecting them and the truth was… he looked up, at the lawyer, at the one way glass, where he knew other people, perhaps Tony, Rhodes, maybe even Vision were watching before turning to the lawyer again.

“Look… I will answer your first question, neither one is very easy or have a short answer, but…” he took a deep breath and could feel his shoulders dropping but it wasn’t out of hopelessness but of relief, Sam couldn’t believe what knowing the truth would do to the tension that seemed to drag him down. Slowly exhaling, the airman continued, “In 2014 I met Steve and I was, I guess star struck is a good description. I mean, what military didn’t hear about Steve Rogers? But, uh, I think that my part in this mess begun in 2015…I lost my mother, my cousins, my uncle…many family members, from the closest that I saw every day to distant ones that I only saw and talked to in family functions we managed to make once in a blue moon.”

“I’m sorry to hear.” But the lawyer seemed distracted, his head leaning towards the one way glass like he was aware something was happening on the other side.

“It wasn’t an accident, illness or natural disaster. At least, I **_thought_** it wasn’t an accident, turns out it was but it wasn’t and… I…”

“Do take your time, Mr. Wilson.” Murdock cautioned and Sam nodded, thankful.

His mind was scrambling for the right words. For so long, he could say the exact right thing to help, to articulate and now…to hell with it. It’s not as if… right now, he owned Stark **_and_** Banner straightforwardness.

“I lost them in 2015, in the scuffle between Iron Man and the Hulk in Johannesburg.”

Murdock had a quick moment where the poker face was no more, only shock and dismay remained before carefully putting on a blank expression.

“And with recent revelations…”

In the form of tapes with one Wanda Maximoff getting to Bruce Banner’s head and setting him off in Johannesburg, even one of Iron Man saying ‘That little witch is your mind’. The other man completed in thought. But Murdock wanted to clarify something.

“So you watched the news and decided not to… cover anymore for Maximoff?”

“No, uh, the… the story is more complicated than that.” Sam winced again, the real deal was not much better than ‘personal agendas because it turns out he had beef with someone’ actually…

“We have time.”

“Right…that was after I was introduced to Stark but before I was invited to the Avengers. Once there I didn’t question Stark’s or Banner’s absence, at the back of my head, I even thought that Steve and Natasha were right to kick them out of the team.” Sam carefully didn’t look at the one way glass, aware that Rhodes was probably watching him along with who else. Good at compartmentalizing or not, he could only guess what he was feeling right now, “I thought that they were being disciplined, especially because of Ultron.”

“I have to say that I don’t understand where you are going with this.”

“I will get to it in a minute,” Sam leaned back as much as he could with his hands cuffed to the table, “I agreed with Steve when he said that Stark was compromised with guilty and that is why he supported the Accords. I thought I had all the facts.”

“And now that you do?” time for the truth.

“After Bucharest, after Berlin, Steve asked, well, he… listened to me and I gave my opinion on something, on someone that I didn’t exchange more than three conversations for an entire year. We were talking about the other Winter Soldiers and I said that even if Stark was willing to listen to us, he would still obey the Accords and wouldn’t help. I said that because **_I_** was compromised because I thought he was part of the reason I lost my family, I was aware of that but…I still did it. I’m not about to claim responsibility for the whole thing, but Leipzig happened in partial, because of me.”

Murdock rubbed his neck but Sam wasn’t finished.

“As for your second question, I would like to call for a psychologist, therapist, someone for a second opinion. As it is, the only reason I have right now is to get even with Maximoff for doing it and with Steve for not ever saying a single word. If I am to make a deal in exchange for their location, I want to do it for the right reasons. Revenge is not one of them.”

~*~

Months later, long after his own court day, Sam was called as witness in the case of Steve Rogers.

Accusations flew around and the whole thing was on the internet, but FRIDAY saved just a little tidbit that she knew Boss would like.

“I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t important, it was in the past! I didn’t even know that… about your parents in Johannesburg.”

And Sam was cold, stock still through the whole thing but this time he sneered, “Yeah, well, sometimes my teammates don’t tell me things.”

The whole world watched Steve flinch back like he was slapped, turning white as a ghost. What the world didn’t know was that Steve would always wonder if Tony told Sam about what he said, about their conversation in the middle of the Ultron disaster, if Sam was only saying it back to feel vindicated and to vindicate someone he wrongly vilified. Or if this was just a cruel turnabout, fate putting a balance on all the betrayal. Karma finally biting back.

Steve didn’t know the answer. And that haunts him.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a headcanon that happened upon me a while ago... fitting and could very well be true, right?


End file.
